A year ago, Dublin singer-songwriter Aimée put out her longing and heart-warming Christmas single ‘Grafton Street Lights’, a beautiful winter ballad paying homage to her hometown during this special time of year. As she explains, the song marked a notable period in her life.

“When I wrote ‘Grafton Street Lights’, I was planning to move to LA,” the singer recalls. “So I was kind of already preempting missing home at Christmas time. I also just feel like Christmas is a rough time for a lot of people for lots of different reasons. But it was the most beautiful and fun song to release. It still gets me excited, even though I released it last year.”

Coming into festive season again, Aimme wanted to revisit the track.

“I’m doing a live studio version of ‘Grafton Street Lights’,” she says. “I’ve got 68 audition tapes from kids that are going to join and sing with me. I wanted to give the song a new life, and involving young singers was just so special to me, because I was once that young singer, who would have done anything to step inside a recording studio. So now I have to select 15 of them, and we’re going to do a live studio performance video.”

More than a Christmas song, Aimée wrote ‘Grafton Street Lights’ as an emotional tribute to Dublin.

“The whole storyline is about me being in California, being over there working and chasing this dream,” she says, “and realising it’s not the same without your special people around you.”

In all of her musical output, Aimée has been open about the importance of family in her life. ‘Grafton Street Lights’, though perhaps not as explicit as some of her previous releases, is no different.

“I feel like from very early on, it was clear to me that no matter where I go with my music or my career, my family is with me,” she says. “I do love to involve them in everything I’m doing.”

The original music video for ‘Grafton Street Lights’ contained a collection of personal videos shared to Aimée by her fans, making for a beautifully emotional, collective piece that feels very fitting appropriate for the track.

“When I started posting teasers of the song,” says Aimee, “people were tagging their loved ones and being like, ‘I miss you’. That’s why I initially was like, ‘The song is not for me.’ It feels like it’s a great song for other people to tell their stories and share their special moments.

“So when I initially posted, I was like, ‘I would love that music video to be about you guys, send me the videos and I’ll put it together.’ And there were thousands. I think I cried for three weeks straight watching those videos because they were so emotional, it was just magic.”

Putting out a Christmas single was never a given, though. In fact, in the years prior, most of the people around Aimée were actively discouraging her from recording it – until she went independent last year.

“On the first studio day I had last year, that was the first song I wrote,” she notes. “It was almost like, okay, I’m on my own now. What’s the first brave thing I can do? And everybody told me to not release the Christmas song, so I’m going to start there.”

Choosing to go down the independent route has been a major leap of faith – a difficult, but ultimately incredibly positive experience, Aimée confirms.

“Since I stepped into the industry at 17, I’ve always had people around me and I’m very grateful for that,” she says. “I really followed their lead in terms of what you should and shouldn’t do. It kind of got to a point, as I became more of a woman in my twenties, where I was like, ‘Have I ever had a thought just to myself, where I didn’t have to ask somebody their opinion on it, and I just made a decision and did it?’

For ‘Grafton Street Lights’, I didn’t ask anybody what they thought.

“I was like, ‘This is my idea and I’m going to run with it’. And that’s exactly how I’ve been over the last year. I’ve never had more fun making music than being independent.”

• ‘Grafton Street Lights' is out now